Cycling

My wife, Lisa, and I are both keen cyclists. Except in the depths of the winter, there is little we enjoy more than to be out and about by bicycle. We both ride conventional Dawes Galaxy touring bikes (yes, I now have a 2000 Galaxy, supplanting my trusty 1988 Dawes Impulse, Lisa's is a 1998 model) and prefer to stay on-road. I've also put my 1994 Raleigh Elan back on the road but abandonned the much-loved Impulse when we moved to Cambridge.

Most often our leisure riding takes over one of the many possible short rides (15-20 miles) around the minor roads in our local area but when we go camping we load up the Galaxies with all our gear and enjoy the totally different experience of heavily laden riding.

For commuting and utility purposes, Lisa has a 1999 Specialized Crossroads while I bought a second-hand Raliegh Pioneer in 2004. As we don't have a car we do a lot of shopping by bike and we both have trailers for when we need more than our paniers and baskets can accomodate. A trailer also comes in handy when a cat has to go to the vet!

As well as riding our own bikes, we also love to watch the top professional road racers in action on the TV, usually courtesy of Eurosport. The centrepiece of the season is, of course, the Tour de France, closely followed in significance by the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España.

For a bit of friendly rivalry, and to add extra interest to the TV coverage, Lisa and I both joined up for the online Fantasy Cycling League run by Roger Hughes in 1998 and in 1999. My team was, perhaps not surprisingly, named Nightowlers, while Lisa's was called Ready Steady Riders. The first Nightowlers line-up took part in the League's 1997 edition. Roger wasn't able to find the time to setup a league in 2000 but, undaunted, Lisa and I made our team selections and cheered on "our" riders throughout the season. We've continued to do our own Fantasy Cycling Team thing each year since.